Gates is a prominent investor in the nuclear reactor development firm TerraPower. For more information on the “traveling wave” reactor concept that the company is developing, see this post at ANS Nuclear Cafe, and this interview with TerraPower CEO John Gilleland in ANS Nuclear News magazine. More recent company news, including exploration of other reactor designs and thorium fuel, can be found in very interesting interviews posted at the Weinberg Foundation blog.

Gates’ enthusiasm for a better future world of infinite energy supply is quite infectious—see for yourself!

Thanks to the NEINetwork on YouTube (Nuclear Energy Institute) for uploading this excellent video of a presentation at MIT, April 2010.

6 thoughts on “Nuclear Matinee – Bill Gates: “I Love Nuclear””

Gee, it’d sure be nice (and belated) if Billy started hawking the virtues and safety and mortality record of _current_ nuclear plants to get the public unfretful and used and receptive with a welcome mat for the ones he wants to see built because the public sees NO difference between anything nuclear and something else nuclear. It’ll be a pretty painful and expensive lesson if he thinks delivering the world a “safer” rose by another name is going to pass the grateful muster of deeply ingrained nuclearphobia and Hiroshima guilt. Heck, Eton Musk won’t even breathe that some of the juice filling his electric cars comes from nuclear plants!

I’m afraid Greenridge is right. Chauncey Starr once suggested that we change the name from “nuclear power” to “uranium power.” Nice try! My research shows me that different groups and different people argue against nuclear power for different reasons. Most are selfish, few are seriously informed. Helen Caldicott once told me (and the radio audience out there) during a radio debate that it took her two whole weeks to write her recent paperback book. I said, “Helen, it takes me two weeks just to check one of my safety calculations.”

If only he could get on the news and say this. People will listen to bums who have no schooling and no experience, but Bill Gates, who seems to have done at least the bare minimum of research necessary to understand nuclear topics, actually has real credibility. A “fallout expert” whose cirriculum vitae is centered around hosting a Coast to Coast AM-esque radio program will get someone’s attention more than a PhD in a nuclear science.

God forbid you actually stand up for nuclear power, then you’ve been “blinded by the industry,” as if “the industry” has any power over the laws of nature and physics. All the while they quote a mainstream media that doctors 911 calls in an effort to beef up a story.

For what its worth.
I don’t really see any of these luminaries like Gates, Musk etc. to effect any change on the energy front these days.
The nuclear industry is desperate to remain relevant in the energy sector during this period of economic instability to no fault of the nuclear industry itself.
One need only look @ states like:
-Mississippi
-New Jersey
-Virginia
-Florida
-Michigan
-Ohio
-South Carolina
-Pennsylvania
-Ontario (Canada)
…to note these are dense population areas where manufacturing has and will re-tool for servicing the next wave of societies wishing to make their mark on world history.
In the mean time these state have most potential to succeed.

“If it was loudly put out that the Microsoft label means a nuclear supporting founder, nuclear’s image would change overnight.”

I, sadly, think it’s more likely that Microsoft’s image would change overnight. Society’s nuclear phobia is just…I don’t know the words, huge. It’s really hard to get people to think rationally when they’re pumped up emotionally by the sorts of people Nathan Hart described above (“fall out expert”).